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Gods, and to appease them by sacrifices, not to be unjust, to show hospitality to strangers, to keep their words inviolably, and to be faithful to the marriage bed. There are many remarks to be made upon the sense in which these precepts were taken, and upon the manner in which they were observed; but to avoid repetitions, I shall reserve them for the article in which I shall treat of the Manners of the ancient Danes: There we shall be best able to judge, what influence their religion had upon these people, and by a natural circle, thence form the most exact idea of the spirit of the religion itself. It is now time to discuss another of its doctrines, that of the state of man after death, and the final destiny of the world he now inhabits.
“There will come a time, says the Edda[1], a barbarous age, an age of the sword, when iniquity shall infest the earth, when brothers shall stain themselves with brothers blood, when sons shall be the murderers of their fathers, and fathers of their sons, when incest and
- ↑ See Mythol. 48. and 49. and the Poem of the Voluspa towards the end, as it is found in the Edit. of Resenius. See also the fragments cited by Bartholin. De Caus. Contempt. a Dan. Gentil. mortis. L. 2. c. 14.
